Page 48 of The Encore’s Crown

Kiri.

The smile gets worse. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, letting the memories return in slow, warm pieces. His mouth on mine, his voice in my ear. The heavy weight of his arm around me while he held me against his chest. The way he kissed my neck like he had nowhere else to be. Like there wasn’t a whole tour moving around us, a dozen people waiting to tell us what a terrible idea this was, or a single reason in the world he should stop.

The way he felt against me. Every hard line of him, every tense muscle. He might try and deny it, but the proof of how badly he wanted me pressed against my body wasn’t difficult to understand at all. A shiver slips through me and I drag the duvet over my face. He wanted me, he admitted it. Kiri Chhim, patron saint of glaring, avoidance, and making every emotion sound like an inconvenience, had been completely wrecked over me. My thighs press together beneath the blanket at the memory. I roll over, bury my face in the pillow, and kick my feet against the mattress like a teenager who’s just been kissed for the first time.

It was better than a kiss.

A lot better.

His hand moving with me. His mouth against my temple. The quiet rasp of his voice telling me he wanted to hear me while my entire body—

My eyes fly open.

The rest of the memory arrives all at once.

You're driving me crazy.

My body goes rigid. I lift my head slowly from the pillow, because with this hangover, moving quickly will only make it worse.

I’m trying to come.

“Oh my God!”

I slam my face back down. A scream leaves me, mostly muffled by the pillow but still loud enough that I immediately freeze and listen for movement in the hall. This level of humiliation is best experienced privately before nine in the morning. I roll onto my back again and cover my face with both hands.

I said that.

Out loud.

To him, while he was touching me. I said it with irritation, too, like he’d inconvenienced me by briefly slowing down instead of continuing to give me the best orgasm of my entire life. Who the fuck was that woman?

I don’t talk like that during anything... sexual. I can tell a stranger online exactly where they can shove their opinion. I can flirt with an entire room watching or make a grown man regret speaking to me with one sentence and a smile. But the second clothes start coming off, my vocabulary packs a bag and leaves the country. I'm always worried about whether I sound stupid, whether I’m being too much or if the noises I make are attractive or embarrassing.

With Kiri, I hadn’t thought about any of it. Nothing stayed inside, not my moans, his name or the embarrassing way I was practically begging him for everything. I couldn't even keep the extremely clear status update about what I wanted him to do, to myself.

I pull the blanket over my head, praying the world will swallow me whole and I don't have to face anyone for the next four days.

“I bit him. Shit.”

The words sound even worse spoken aloud.

Maybe that part was justified.

No, it wasn’t. I'm not an animal.

Except I am, because one minute he was teasing me and the next I had my teeth in him while his hand was between my legs.

I groan so dramatically the mattress probably thinks I'm dying. The worst part is that remembering it makes heat bloom through me all over again. The Khmer that escaped him, the laugh in his chest.

This is bad.

This is so fucking bad.

I glance over and acknowledge for the first time that the other side of the bed is empty. Kiri leaving before anyone saw him was sensible.

We’re in a hotel full of people that would have a heart attack if they knew what happened. Leaving was the responsible thing to do. Exactly the kind of thing he would do after spending the entire night with his fingers inside me while I tried to climb him like a tree.

My stomach twists.